Tensions of Social History: Sources, Data, Actors and Models in Global Perspective

Description

This book seeks to overcome the tension between 'western' and 'non-western' categories and tools in the study of global history, showing how most western approaches to the social sciences and history have developed through transnational and colonial interactions. Offering a transnational and global history of the main tools we have to understand the word and its transformations over the last three centuries, Tensions of Social History explores the construction of archives and historical memory, the making of statistics and their use in politics, the identification of social actors, and the emergence of key social theories. Providing key insights into how to write history and develop social sciences in the global era while avoiding eurocentrism and cultural exceptionalism, this ambitious book shows how global history is made of encounters rather than confrontations between civilizations. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1 What is a source? Archives, memory and contested contextualities 1 Revolutionary archives Where multiple worlds meet: revolution, theatre and cosmographies Archives and the French Revolution 2 Archives in the twentieth century: from communism to the decolonization Totalitarian archives? Written sources against oral documents: the invention of the source and people with no history Locating the archives Conclusion: Part 1 Part Two The social life of data Introduction: archives, data and models 3 When one person eats two chickens and another none, on average they eat one chicken each. The invention of social statistics under capitalism The social construction of an artefact: questionnaires, expeditions, texts and data Back to the future. From Russian statistics to Piketty 4 Environment and social inequalities: how are data made and by whom? Weather forecasting: science, divination or both? Predicting future harvests Cyclones: from travel narratives to forecasting Cyclones in the archives Conclusion: Part 2 Part Three Fragments of social worlds Introduction How can this discussion be developed in transregional and global perspective? 5 What is a worker, what is a slave? Who is the ‘real’ slave? 6 What is a peasant? The global history of ‘immobile people’ Fighting for or against ideal types. Peasant studies in the Cold War Peasants in history? Pluri-activity and multiple identities 7 What is a consumer? Identities and alterities in the stomach Quantifying consumption and its roots: famines or speculation? Quality in consumption: Who defines it? Standardization and mass consumption Conclusion: Part 3 Part Four The quest of universality: values, theories and the European model 8 Societies and their evolution: from the Enlightenments to Marxisms Marx’s social actors in global context Neo-Marxism and the ‘social turn’ 9 Weberian worlds The great divergence: Weber on his head? Durkheim and the Annales School Social structures and the longue durée Back to anthropology? Conclusion: Part 4 General conclusion References Index